The Art of Rendering (April 2012)
A description of the different techniques used in high end rendering and the major engines.

The State of Rendering (July 2013): part 1, part 2
A lengthy overview of the state of the art in high end rendering, comparing the different tools and rendering solutions available, their approach and design choices, strengths and weaknesses as well as the consequences in terms of quality, scalability and render time.

The quality is incredible, the gap from photo realism is getting very narrow, and some expressions are really convincing. The transitions and frozen expressions feel weird though, so I am wondering how it would look running freely for a moment, with all the rapid subtle moves we show even when staying idle. The avatar as a mean of communication is certainly very appealing. It would be interesting to see if when facing this rendering, we would react to the expressions displayed.

Skin rendering is really not my thing. Yet. I have too much figuring out rendering of opaque materials already to deal with ones exhibiting sub-surface scattering. But I got trapped reading one article and then another.. and before I knew I had a list I wanted to note for later reference.